Month: September 2014

I spent last week or so discovering things on CRM 2013 tablet application and to be honest, it is pretty good. There are limitations but it is a good start for Dynamics CRM in tab and mobile market with having an out of box app.

Here are the series of blogs which pretty much sum all I could find on CRM 2013 Tablet application configuration, what can be done what cannot be done etc. For installation it is available in Google store for Android tabs, Windows store for Windows tabs and Apple store for IPAD tabs.

I wanted to have a final blog on my discoveries with CRM for tablets for CRM 2013. This blog will sum up understanding Navigation options, commands and how to handle form scripts for CRM for tablets.

Some References below from MSDN site

Changing Navigation Options for CRM for tablets:

It uses the same sitemap data as CRM web application.

If an entity is enabled for CRM for tablets and appears in the navigation bar for the web application, it will also appear on the navigation bar in CRM for tablets.

A grouping within an Area on the web client will be ignored. The CRM for tablets app will show the entities as a flat list.

The order of the items in the Nav bar is determined by the order in the site map. If there is a duplicate, the first instance will be the only one shown.

Custom entities will use a fixed custom entity icon.

Command bar for CRM for tablets:

It uses same information as on Ribbon for CRM web application.

Handling form Scripts for CRM for tablets:

Scripts written for forms used in the web application in should also work with CRM for tablets but there are some differences. As a rule, methods that are not valid within CRM for tablets will not throw errors, but they will also not return any values. Developers can use the following conditional statement to separate code that will not work correctly using CRM for tablets.

JavaScript

if (Xrm.Page.context.client.getClient() != “Mobile”)

{

//Code that should not run in CRM for tablets can be included here

}

The following list should help you understand what to expect:

· Using window.alert, window.confirm, window.prompt or any other code that blocks code execution will not work for CRM for tablets.

· Because web resources and IFRAMES in forms are not displayed in CRM for tablets any of the methods provided to interact with them will not work.

· Because CRM for tablets does not provide the ability for a user to switch to different forms, those methods that enable this in the web application will not work.

· Any methods that allow for showing or navigating to related entities in the web application will not work.

· Methods that would refresh the command bar, get dimensions of the view port, or close a form window will not work.

This blog is meant to understand how to configure an entity to be available in CRM for tablets. Say I have a custom entity and want it to be available in CRM for Tablets. You need to go to Entity customization and work on the options mentioned in below screen. It will be the last option in Entity customization:

Detailed description below (Reference from MSDN)

CRM for phones

This entity will be available within the Microsoft Dynamics CRM for phones application.

CRM for Tablets

This entity will be available using Microsoft Dynamics CRM for tablets. You also have the option to make this entity Read-only in CRM for tablets.

If the forms for an entity require an extension that isn’t supported by CRM for tablets, such as IFRAME or web resource controls, use this setting to ensure that the data for these entities is not editable by people using CRM for tablets.

Now, this is the part when you need to configure it for custom entity, what about if you want to do it for system entity. There are loads of things to know here. Let us have a look at that as well:

(Reference from MSDN)

Only certain system entities are visible or can be used with CRM for tablets. The following table shows the entities displayed in CRM for tablets.

· Account

· Appointment

· Competitor

· Connection

· Contact

· Lead

· Note

· Opportunity

· Opportunity Product

· Phone Call

· Task

Note: The Connection entity is only available as part of the Stakeholders and Sales team on the Opportunity form.

Now, which system entities can be set as read only?

Except for the Activity, Connection, and Note entities, each of these entities can also be disabled so they won’t appear in CRM for tablets or they could be set as read-only.

Records for the following entities are only available in read-only forms:

· Case

· Email

· Email Attachment

· Product

· Team

· User

Case, Email and Product entities can be set so they aren’t visible in CRM for tablets.

I was trying to setup multiple users for roles other than Administrator to be able to access CRM 2013 for tablets but was somehow unable to see why they were not able to access CRM 2013 on IPAD app. I haven’t checked on the privileges in a while but remembered that the privilege name used to be called Go Mobile or something. Then, finally I figured it out. The privilege has been renamed:

Text reference from Microsoft site.

A new security privilege was introduced to provide access to use CRM for tablets. The privilege is called Use CRM for tablets.

Prior releases of Microsoft Dynamics CRM have included a privilege called Go Mobile, which grants a user access to use of Microsoft Dynamics CRM from a mobile phone. To avoid confusion between the existing privilege (for phones) and the new CRM for tablets privilege, the Go Mobile privilege has been renamed to CRM for phones.

By default, this privilege is included for the following default security roles:

· CEO-Business Manager

· Salesperson

· Sales Manager

· Vice President of Sales

· System Administrator

· System Customizer

Now, how to configure it. You need to Go to the Security role intended and see the Business management tab:

You will find the privilege under the Privacy Related privileges:

As you can see in above screen, that was the cause for me not being able to access CRM 2013 for tablets for certain security roles. Once I configured it for the needed roles, I was able to access the app for CRM 2013 from those security roles.

As I already mentioned in my earlier blog, I am focusing to write some stuff on my experiences with setting up the CRM 2013 Tablet app for IPAD and summing it up with few blogs on it.

During demos and end user scenarios it is often the case that we need to sign out or reconfigure the CRM app on tablet. Here is a quick tip on doing it:

You might choose between sign out on the app or reconfigure the application, depending on what the scenario is. You need to navigate to more commands and pick the option. Refer screen below:

Here is a description of when to pick what (Text reference from Microsoft site):

Sign out

Signing out deletes data and authentication tokens from the cache, and it also deletes cookies on iPad and Android tablets. Signing out does not delete metadata. This means that if a user signs in again after signing out, a metadata sync is not required before using the application again, which can save a few minutes when you sign in.

Reconfigure

Reconfiguring deletes all data and metadata from the cache.

If you sign out from one organization and sign in to another, and use the Reconfigure option on the second one, your metadata will still remain for the first organization. If you want to remove your metadata from the first one, you’ll need to sign in to it and use the Reconfigure option there, as well.

Some of my upcoming blogs will be around CRM 2013 for tablets. I was just trying to get my head through the IPAD application available for CRM 2013 for few demos. There is a feature for multi entity search available in IPAD application for Dynamics CRM 2013. The number of entities available for multi-search has been restricted. I sense this is for making the performance of search better. This blog is about how to configure entities which are available for multi search.

We need to go to Settings-> Administrator->System Settings:

Under General You will see a setting and Select button (Highlighted in Red) ->

Once you click select button following screen will appear:

The thing to note here is Originally Account, Contact, Lead, Opportunity, User, Competitor and Activity are configured for multi entity search out of the box.

Say, I also want to configure Case entity for multi-entity search: You just need to select Case and move it to Selected Entities by Clicking Add.

New configuration would look like:

Hit save or save and close on the top of the above screen and you are done. The entity will start appearing on CRM 2013 for tablets.

Next time you open your IPAD application you might see following screen:

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